Pacific Coast Conference

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The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pacific Ten Conference (Pac-10) claims the PCC's history as part of its own, the older league had a completely different charter and was disbanded in 1959 due to a major crisis and scandal.

Established on December 15, 1915, its charter members were the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon State College (now Oregon State University).

1 Conference members
2 Before the crisis
3 The crisis
4 Aftershocks and disbandment
5 See also
6 Source

[edit] Conference members

University of California, Berkeley (1915-1959)
University of Oregon (1915-1959)
Oregon State College (1915-1959)
University of Washington (1915-1959)
Washington State College (1917-1959)
Stanford University (1918-1959)
University of Idaho (1922-1959)
University of Southern California (1922-1959, suspended in 1924)
University of Montana (1924-1950)
University of California, Los Angeles (1928-1959)

[edit] Before the crisis

Many people think of the Pac-10 today as a collection of five regional rivalries, but this fails to take into account the other campus animosities and state rivalries which defined the Pacific Coast Conference. There were tensions between California and the Northwest schools. Edwin Pauley, a regent of the University of California, stated his disdain for universities in the Pacific Northwest and advocated that the California institutions leave the Pacific Coast Conference to form a "California Conference". There were also academic conflicts. Pauley felt that University of California campuses deserved to play against colleges with comparably high academic standards.

The PCC had a history of being very strict with regards to its standards; it suspended USC from the conference in 1924, performed a critical self-study in 1932, and a voluminous report was compiled by Edwin Atherton in 1939. The PCC had a paid commissioner, an elaborate constitution, a formal code of conduct, and a system for reporting student-athlete eligibility.

Things took a turn for the worse when in 1951 charges were made and confirmed that the University of Oregon football coach had violated the conference code for financial aid and athletic subsidies. After firing the violating coach, Oregon urged the PCC to look at the abuses by UCLA football coach Red Sanders. After years of trying to reform, reports were finally leaked to the press in 1956 of reliance on slush funds for systematic, unauthorized payments to college football players by Cal, UCLA, USC, and Washington.

[edit] The crisis

The scandal first broke in Washington, when in January 1956, several discontented players staged a mutiny against their coach. After the coach was fired, the PCC followed up on charges of a slush fund. The PCC found evidence of the illegal activities of the Greater Washington Advertising Fund, and in May imposed sanctions.

In March, allegations of illegal payments made by two booster clubs associated with UCLA, the Bruin Bench and the Young Men's Club of Westwood were published in LA newspapers. UCLA refused for ten weeks to allow PCC officials to proceed in their investigation. Finally, UCLA admitted that, "all members of the football coaching staff had, for several years, known of the unsanctioned payments to student athletes and had cooperated with the booster club members or officers, who actually administered the program by actually preferring student athletes to them for such aid." The scandal thickened as a UCLA alumnus and member of the UCLA athletic advisory board blew the whistle on a secret fund for illegal payments to USC players, known as the Southern California Educational Foundation. This same alumnus also blew the whistle on Cal's phony work program for athletes known as the San Francisco Gridiron Club, with an extension in the Los Angeles area known as the South Seas Fund.

[edit] Aftershocks and disbandment

The first major reaction came from the University of California system. Robert Sproul, president of the University of California, along with the chancellors of Berkeley and UCLA, drafted a "Five Point Plan", emphasizing academic eligibility standards, setting the two UC campuses apart from the PCC and laying the groundwork for their departure. For Sproul the PCC dispute was not just about athletics; at stake was the ideal of a unified University of California that enjoyed statewide support. This ideal collided with aspirations of UCLA alumni who believed that Sproul's vision would always favor the Berkeley campus at the expense of the younger UCLA campus.

Oregon State College president August Leroy Strand wrote, "The reasons for California and UCLA dropping out are as different as night and day... the significance of the whole affair was the union of Berkeley and UCLA... admissions and scholarship had nothing to do with the withdrawals..." Berkeley's desire to schedule athletic contests only with academic equals is real, thought it seldom has been expressed. "The marriage of this desire on the part of Berkeley with the known ambitions and necessities of its sister institution has produced a bastard that has the bard of a purebred but the innards and hair of a mongrel."

By 1957 the conference had fallen apart, leading to the decision to dissolve in 1959. Soon after the PCC was dissolved, several of its former members (California, Washington, UCLA, USC, and Stanford) created the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU). Eventually Oregon, Oregon State, and Washington State would join this coalition, but members were not required to play other members. Tensions were high between UCLA and Stanford, as Stanford had voted for UCLA's expulsion from the PCC.

Despite all this, the AAWU eventually strengthened its bonds and became the Pacific 8 Conference (Pac-8), which eventually became the Pac-10.